


Moving Forward

by RingingSilence



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: F/M, Multiple Major Character Deaths, Okay Maybe a Little Sorry, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Sorry Not Sorry, The movie's ending though, nothing graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 13:14:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8981221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RingingSilence/pseuds/RingingSilence
Summary: The Death Star fires on Scarif and it seems those left on its surface are fated to die.Or are they?





	

_The Force works in mysterious ways_. Even now with the Jedi gone that phrase has still reached her ears once or twice.

Her mother’s last words to her were “trust the Force”.

Kneeling on the edge of the tide, blasted with the coming wave of fire and crushed in the arms of the first person to stand by her in years…she could. They were about to die, but they’d gotten the plans to the rebellion. Her father’s last wish, against all odds, was accomplished.

And if she had to die to make that happen, at least she wasn’t dying alone.

Clinging to the rebel, she kept her eyes open as long as she could before the world vanished in a blast of fire.

 

 

Light…

She could feel light, see it through her closed eyes, and even _hear_ it singing in her ears.

With the realization she could feel again she took in a sharp gasp of air, only to cough on the taste of ash and ozone and suddenly the light flared into fire.

Dragging herself onto her side, she blinked sand out of her eyes and groaned as her body protested in a thousand aches and stings. She panicked for a moment when her eyes were only met with white, thinking she’d gone blind like Chirrut. After a few hard blinks the light faded and she made out the scuffed surface of a storm trooper’s back plate and she let out a sigh of relief…broken in coughs as her lungs reminded her of the dust covering everything.

She’d been on the shore when the storm of fire hit. Somehow, the force of the blast had blown her back to the base of the communication tower, cradling her in a pile of debris just inside the open lift. Struggling free of the detritus she pushed aside the pain from her burned skin for the moment and stumbled back out. All of the tall palm trees of the islands had been flattened and charred, their wide fronds reduced to smoking skeletons where they hadn’t been completely destroyed. The pressure of the blast had pushed the shore inland and as she stepped out of the box her boots splashed in several inches of water now resting over even the higher portions of the island. She stared numbly at the destruction around her, bodies and bits of the tower littering the water, before raising her hands to her face.

“Cassian!”

The name broke on a cough, but even so she paused to listen for a response. Nothing. Sloshing through the water, she stumbled further ‘inland’, scanning the flotsam for anything familiar. After a few moments she called again, this time the name coming out clear enough to echo across the water.

There was a screech from some winged creature as it settled on the back of another storm trooper, then silence.

Limping through the water, she headed roughly in the direction the storm had been blowing towards, hoping that he’d gotten blown further than she had. She’d admitted to him that his volunteering for this was the first time someone had stuck by her even when things were bad. He’d smiled and said “welcome home”. If he left her now, that would make him no better than anyone else in her life. She didn’t know if she could survive something like that.

Distracted with her eyes scanning for bodies, she stumbled on something hidden beneath the surface and fell into the water with a crash. For a moment the water soothed her burned skin and she took strength from it before pushing herself to her knees to see what it was.

A staff, essentially a twisted branch of wood that wouldn’t have caught her attention, had it not been for the fact it was familiar: Chirrut’s, with no sign of its master. Pushing aside the dread that inspired for the moment she pulled it to her and used it to leverage herself back up to her feet, leaning on it as she sloshed on.

The next familiar sight was not far away. She didn’t need to turn Baze over to know he was dead. Didn’t need to, but she did anyway and had to look away to pull herself together. Most of his hair had been burned away in some sort of blast that had burned the right side of his face and most of his armor. His eyes were closed and despite the evidence of a violent end what she could make out of his expression was peaceful. She took a moment to kneel beside him and pray that the force had made his end swift and easy before she kept going.

The hulk of a ship loomed out of the tide and she couldn’t help but wander towards it. The wings had been sheared off either from the blast or during the fighting earlier, and as she came around the side she saw the interior was blackened, the walls of the ship cracked and warped by an explosion from the inside. She couldn’t help but think of Eadh, of the harrowing flight through the pillars of volcanic rock that they’d somehow survived with Bodhi’s help and a bit of luck. They’d crashed, but that had given her the chance to make her own way to her father, to have that one heart-stopping moment when she’d called out to him and he’d met her gaze before the rebels fired on the base. A moment to reach him after, to speak to him one last time before he’d died. If Cassian hadn’t pried her away she didn’t know how long she would have stayed by Galen’s side. Maybe until the rebels hit the platform again, maybe forever.

Limping up the remains of the gangway, she settled against one of the walls to rest for a moment and looked out at the island. Far beyond, there was still a faint halo of cloud from the epicenter of the blast but the water was calm now, sucking and slapping quietly at the wreckage that had been a battlefield. Where once there had been screams and the screeches of firing blasters was now silence.

It was familiar.

It was deafening.

Jyn got back on her feet and kept walking.

She hadn’t gone too far when she saw the sharp angles of one of the ship’s wings jutting out of the water, a ramp towards the stars it had once sailed. She remembered the gate, blue energy parted beneath them as they waited for the go-ahead to fly through and how she’d clung to the crystal from her mother. Of how after, she’d turned and there Cassian was, smiling with the relief and triumph that everyone in the cockpit felt as Bodhi flew them down towards Scarif’s surface. Her free hand was twitching towards the pendant where it hid beneath her shirt when she finally saw it, and she almost fell as she rushed through the water towards him.

He was on his back, the water just shallow enough here that it left most of him clear. As she fell to the sand beside him, she saw that his eyes were closed, skin blistered from the heat of the blast but his brows smooth over his relaxed face. She grabbed his shoulders and shook him roughly.

“Hey.”

She thought there might have been a twitch of movement, but his face remained still. Glancing up at the wing, she hauled him upright enough to get her arms under his and used what energy she had left to drag him up it, out of the water as far as she could get him. Catching her breath, she put her hands on either side of his face and turned him towards her.

“Hey!”

He remained still.

Pressing her ear to his chest, she felt a cold drop in her stomach as she was rewarded with silence. Getting to her knees, she locked her hands into a knot over his sternum and shoved. Once, twice, three times, then she leaned over to listen for breaths. Silence.

“Don’t you dare leave me!” She snarled and returned to the rhythm of compressions. She was a soldier, not a healer, so she didn’t know if she was going to hard or too light and she let her anger and frustration take the lead because if she didn’t she’d fall into panic and if she did there would be no hope at all.

Once, twice, thrice, listen.

Still no breath.

Once, twice, thrice again. Listen:

Still not a flutter.

Once, twice, three times, four, practically jam her ear into the front of his pale tunic to listen for his heart.

…

…

Silence.

Tears prickling at her eyes now she just about pounded the compressions into his chest before seizing his head, one hand holding his mouth open and the other pinching his nose closed as she forced his chest to fill with her breath. The image of him looking at her as he stopped her from going after the man that ruined her family, the look he’d given her in the elevator, that promise of _something_ that wasn’t quite strong enough, not quite _certain_ enough for more than his hand in hers as she pressed her mouth over his and blew all of her desperation, anger, and prayers into his chest. She ducked her head to the side to gulp in a breath before doing it again and then pausing to listen beneath the sounds of her own panting.

…

……

…Nothing.

The tears stung more as they encountered the blisters on her cheeks and she didn’t even have the strength to lift her head, burying her face in his chest and pounding on him with one clenched fist.

_“I couldn’t face myself if I gave up now.”_

_Then don’t!_ She mentally screamed, not sure if she wanted to shake him again or just curl up and disappear.

_“Are you with me?”_

_“All the way.”_

Gritting her teeth over a sob, she forced herself to lift her face to look at him again.

_“I’m not used to people sticking around when things go bad.”_

_“Welcome home.”_

“Don’t do this…” She whispered, “…don’t leave me alone.” _Like everyone else I’ve ever cared about_.

She stared into his face, daring him to twitch, to smile, to do something so infuriating she’d hit him just to hide the relief that he did _something_.

She thought, for just a moment, that she felt a hand on her shoulder but when she reached and turned to look there was no one there. Turning back, Cassian remained unmoving. Slowly, she set her head back down on his chest and just let the tears flow soundlessly. Around her, only the quiet murmuring of waves reminded her of the world around her, waiting patiently while she grieved the loss of her last friend.

Gradually, the tears and the aching in her chest eased and with a sniff she sat back on her knees. Wiping her eyes roughly, she reached out and unbuckled his belt, fastening it across her chest before sitting back to just look at him for another moment. She could feel something shattering inside her, walls he and their band of misfits had gradually broken down being rebuilt but she pushed the heaviness down and managed to struggle to her feet. She almost turned back to look at him again as she stepped into the water, but forced herself to keep her shoulders straight and stumble forward. The ache in her chest swelled again and she raised her face to the sky, wondering if there was anyone left floating far above or if they had abandoned her too.

“What now?” She called into the sky, swinging her free hand out wide. “What am I supposed to do now?”

Not even the flutter of a bird disturbed the still expanse of the sky and she let her arm drop back to her side. What was the point of her surviving? Why had the force let her live when all of her friends and family had not? What was the point?

Shaking her head, she let her eyes lose focus as she pointed herself back in the direction of the ruins of the comm tower and began limping forward. It was only because of the staff that she was able to catch herself this time when she stumbled on something dense beneath the surface. Taking a step back to steady herself she glared down at the thing, then squinted and leaned down. The droid arm was heavy, the metal cold and inanimate. It could have been any droid, particularly since she was standing in the remains of an Imperial base, but for one thing:

Clutched in the metallic fingers was a blaster.

She couldn’t help but think back to the moment she’d handed the converted droid her stolen weapon, the understanding that had passed between them when he’d accepted it. The moment his voice died out over the communicators and the vault door had locked behind her and Cassian.

This could be any droid’s arm, but she knew in a way she couldn’t explain it was Kay.

Slowly, she wrapped her fingers around the blaster’s handle and to her surprise the hand gave it up easily, digits clanking back into place as she pulled it free. Gently, she set the hand back down into the water and examined the blaster. A lizard-like bird landed on a piece of debris nearby and screeched, leaning down to preen its wing. Without really thinking about it, she raised the blaster and felt a jolt when it fired a bolt, earning a squawk of surprise before the bird splashed into the water. Glancing at the blaster again, she slid it through a loop in the belt and trudged over to the bird, picking it up by the feet and heading towards the remains of the tower.

She was done with wars and rebellions, but perhaps there was some fight left in her yet.

The Force works in mysterious ways.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wanting to write a graphic novel so it's about time I started getting feedback to improve as a writer ^^, This is the first time I've put a non-comic fanfic out into the ether, so let me know what you think!
> 
> Also...I like writing happy stuff, but I seem to have more success finishing stories with an imperfect ending...ehehe...


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